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Wednesday, October 07, 2009

We've had drawings in the past...drawings that fund our efforts. It's particularly challenging this time of year as we struggle to keep our doors open. It's been a tough six months for us but we've managed to hang in there. Many thanks to those who have helped us. I wouldn't be writing this announcement if you had not been there to help

But extraordinary times demand extraordinary effort...

And sacrifice....however we are glad to do it if it keeps us afloat.

Welcome to our semi-annual prize drawing. We have a unique if not a collectors item offered as first prize so let's get to the good stuff.

The Larado Quadrado

Last year, when everything seemed to be pointing to success for Loye Young, the economy took its nasty downturn and the computer manufacturing company, Issac and Young Computer Company had to close down. Loye and his company manufactuted the Larado Quadrado. A larger version of a shuttle computer with a dual core 64 bit chip, complete with ATI video, a gig of ram with dvd/cdom burner and a generous hard drive. It also has a pci wireless adapter. Loye put a lot of love and sweat into manufacturing these machines but he did not get a chance to make many.

Loye presented me one of these machines during a visit to Austin.

I am offering this machine as our grand prize. As much as I hate to, I think that this great computer stands as a testament to those who struggle until they win. What I like is the LED on the face that monitors hard drive and cpu temperatures. No need for widgets or panel apps...it stares you right in the face. In the 3 months that I used it, it performed in a stellar manner. I only put it away because I didn't want to put a bunch of hours on what may become or may already be a collectors item. Be aware though, we are only offering the computer...the picture is just to show you the machine in relation to the monitor and perephrials.

Note on the back of the machine, the serial number...that should fairly well verify the rarity of these machines.

The Toshiba Tecra M2

This is a great little laptop...not exactly new, but with Linux driving the 1.6 gig chip and with a gig of ram and an intel chipset, we've had great success with these machines. Our thanks to Andy Krell of Nfusion for giving us a cartload of these. This is the last of the bunch, as the rest were given away to our HeliOS Project kids.

For those that don't know of us, The HeliOS Project has given away just shy of 1000 computers to Austin and Central Texas children in the past 4 years. We have built two great computer labs in Austin and may be slated to be the donated computer suppliers for a foundation called Our Texas Grandchildren, founded by Carole Keeton Strayhorn, former Comptroller for the State of Texas.

These are the kids that have had the roughest times in foster care. They have a special place in our hearts and we aim to pave some of the uneven road that lies ahead of them.

AMD 50x15

And of course, our drawing would not be complete without a prize of dubious worth and mention. We are offering our last AMD-manufacured 50x15 mini computer. Unique in that we seldom offer anything that runs Windows but in this case, we will make an exception. It fits in a drawer or huddles on the corner of a desk, fully capable of web browsing, word processing and has apps for photo manipulation. USB ports abound for you various needs as well. And we promise, if you so state, we will not announce the name of the winner for this prize.

People do tend to talk...

Tuxbymail or do-it-yourself Certificates

Know someone who is serious about using Linux but is still hesitant? Give them a certificate for Tuxbymail? They ship us their laptop and we install Linux either as a dual-boot or clean install for them. They pay shipping and insurance but in return, new life is infused into what they might consider a doorstop. Also, we offer to send someone you choose a do it yourself kit from out HeliOS Solutions store. Live CD's for them to explore with the entire user manual for the distro. We are offering 4 of each prize.

Please bookmark this announcement as we have others who may add to the prizes. The drawing is 10 dollars per entry and you can click our non profit conduit icon at the top left of this page to enter. Or, you can click here. Each 10.00 entry gives you a different chance at one of these prizes... so a 30.00 entry will secure three chances. If you are unable to participate using this link, email me at helios at fixedbylinux dott kom and we can give you an alternative.

Because of shipping costs and ambiguous export laws, we cannot ship the machines overseas and I apologize for this. We've ran into problems before shipping even new computers so unfortunately, we cannot ship them outside of North America. However if someone outside those borders does win a Do It Yourself Kit certificate, we will be glad to send that anywhere in the world.

The drawing will be held on November 8th, 2009.

My warmest and most sincere thanks to those who help us do what we do. We count on your support and are most grateful for it.

lanser, sorry for the ommission. I will make the edit right away. We will honor out of country winners for the Do it yourself kits but shipping costs and ambiguous export laws prohibit us from mailing the computers.

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Many of the kids we build computers for visit this blog. Please post anything you want but do it with the thought of an 11 year old child sitting next to you.

Our kids get exposed to enough trash in the world, let's not add to it here. We can't "clean up" the internet, but we can do our part not to add to the garbage pile. - Thanks for being part of what we do. - h

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Legal-Ease Stuff

GNU may be a registered trademark of the Free Software Foundation. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Ubuntu and Canonical are registered trademarks of Canonical Ltd. Debian is a registered trademark of Software in the Public Interest, Inc. And of course Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation, and AMD is a registered trademark of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Windows, XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Microsoft Office are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. My research shows that "embrace, extend and extinguish" is not held as a legal trademark by anyone as of yet. Microsoft might want to snatch that up just to round out their portfolio.
Hey, I'm just sayin'...
while I am at it, this is a known spammer's email address and I am placing it here so his email address will be harvested by other spammers. tony942012@163.com